Britannica Web sites

(1908-2005). Polish-born British physicist Joseph Rotblat was an international activist against nuclear weapons and the founder of the Pugwash conferences. He was a member of the Manhattan Project, the group of scientists who designed the first nuclear bomb. Rotblat resigned from the project before the bomb was dropped and became an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons. In 1957 he founded the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a series of scientific meetings organized around the goal of preventing nuclear war. The 1995 Nobel peace prize was awarded jointly to Rotblat and the Pugwash conferences.